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Mobile ad network Chitika measured traffic from tablets and smartphones via impressions on both the period leading up to Christmas and the period immediately following, and found a few devices grew their share significantly, while others didn’t fare so well. The iPhone 5 was the top gainer in smartphones, growing 1.11 percent overall following Christmas day; the Samsung Galaxy S III also grew 1 percent. But there was greater variance among tablets, where the Kindle Fire grew considerably, and iPad share actually dropped off.

Chitika found that on its network, the Kindle Fire gained 3.03 percent of the overall market share, nearly doubling its total share of tablet traffic to 7.51 percent. The Galaxy Tablet, both 7- and 10-inch versions, also gained a fair amount with 1.38 percent growth, and the Google Nexus grew by nearly 1 percent. Not surprisingly, traffic from the BlackBerry Playbook dropped, but only by a very meagre 0.02 percent. What is perhaps surprising is that traffic share from all iPad models actually shrank, and was down 7.14 percent overall according to Chitika’s numbers. Remember that despite share growth slipping, Apple likely sold a large number of devices over the holiday; the number just reflects usage share spread out across all devices in the category as they pertain to one another.

The iPad still dominates overall tablet traffic, with 78.86 percent of all traffic from slates, but it dropped from 86 percent pre-Christmas. Chitika still expects it to climb back above 80 percent, but it does suggest that a lot of gift-givers opted for (likely less expensive) alternatives from Android-based competitors this year.

This gives a little more device-specific context to the numbers put out by Flurry showing growth of iOS and Android device activations on Christmas and in the days following. It’s still likely not an exact representation of how the chips fell in terms of overall holiday sales, but at least it provides a look at which devices where being turned on and actively used in the days following the gift-giving season.